


The Argument

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-02
Updated: 2010-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Snape family discusses young Severus' educational future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Argument

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by some research I did soon after _Deathly Hallows_ was released. The fandom was trying to make sense of Severus Snape. I discovered that in 1960, the year he was canonically born, changes began happening in the milltowns of northern Britain as a wave of immigration from Pakistan began.
> 
> This story is an attempt to frame the argument Harry saw in Severus' mind in _Order Of The Phoenix_ (not included in the movie version) in the context of the adult reality of that time period that Severus would not have understood at that age but that his parents would have been dealing with.

Three days of solid arguments from the moment his father came home from the mill until after they had all gone to bed.

"We can't afford that! The boy will go to school around here. We haven't got the money to send him off where you went." His father's dark eyes were gleaming and his dirty yellow hair was wild.

"Tobias, I've been saving bits up for years. You know that."

"And they're talking about bringing even more foreigners in to work the night shift. Again. We may need those bits to eat, if things keep going as they are!"

His stomach growled as he tried to sink lower and curl up tighter in the corner of the room. He was hungry enough often enough as it was. Was his father right that it was going to get worse and not better?

"They have a fund..."

"And no child of mine is going to depend on handouts to eat, Eileen!"

"It's not a handout. It's the Wizarding world's investment in its own future," she hissed, keeping her voice low.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"That the only difference between a child on it and off it is where the pocket money comes from. And the patches on used robes. I saved my old books, he can use them if they're still using the same ones."

"Still. A. Handout."

"It's assumed that those on the fund will be valuable to the Wizarding community as adults. It's no more a handout than your father giving you his greatcoat when we got started because you had farther to walk to work than he."

Quiet. A plotting quiet, both trying to calculate the next move. He could see it in their eyes.

"Seven years, Tobias. Seven years Severus will be eating on someone else's bill, 'cept for summer holidays, if that fund covers him."

The smell of dinner in the oven a room away was practically maddening.

"And after that?"

"He'll have the best hands-on education in those powers of his that he can get. And can choose which world he lives in, as I did, and how he makes his way."

Sullen silence, and air that could almost be cut with a carving knife. He had no question his mother's tiny silver potions knife could.

"Seven years, you said?"

"Warm food. Warm beds. No-cost doctoring if he so much as breaks his little toe. Warm clothes, since the fund would cover them."

"Sounds softening."

"Tobias, in case you have forgotten..." She walked closer, carefully approaching her husband, "... I went in a pampered little girl who had to have her mother magic her shoes tied and came out as the woman you married."

"And how the mighty fell."

He was a bit confused at the tone in his father's voice. It was slightly dismissive, yet warm, and the two parents were smirking at each other.

"But my honey-bear is worth more than what I left behind me."

He held her close, and she kissed the arch of his nose as she rose up on the fronts of her feet.

"Boy?"

"Yes, Father, sir?" He tried to keep the waver out of his voice.

"You're going to that school of your mum's, if they'll take you."

"Thank you." He could finally meet other children like him! They wouldn't have any reason to call him weird, or strange, or freak, because they'd all be magic. And he wouldn't be alone when Lily went off to school, because he'd be on the same train!

"And boy?"

"Yes, sir?"

"That table set yet?"

"No, sir." He looked down. He'd been too afraid to disturb either of them that he hadn't moved once they had started shouting for the evening.

"Well, get to it! We haven't told the school you're coming yet, now have we?"

He leapt up, dashing for the kitchen.

He was nearly done getting the knives and forks in place when he heard his mother growl ever so slightly in the next room. "Tobias..."

"Well, he'll be the best-behaved boy in the entire county until you send that bird off, and since she's a night flyer he doesn't have to know when, now does he?"

He set the last piece of the tableware down. "Oi!"

His father walked in, lifted him up, and held him close. "You're a good kid, Sev. Slight touch on the mental side, sometimes, but you get that from your mother."

"OI!" His mother appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips and her wand held in her right hand. "Now, hands and faces washed before either of you eat, or I'll wash them for you. And if you say another word like that, Tobias Snape, I may just clean your face for you anyway."

His father put him back down on the floor and he ran over to the sink.

He could hear his mother murmur, "I'll send a letter to Dumbledore tonight, asking about the fund. I can do more cauldron work, if it's needed."

"You may need to do more cauldron work anyway, Eileen." There was something like defeat in his voice.

"I'm not the only wife this row who helps out, Honey-bear. Besides, if Severus watches me, he'll have a head start in at least one of his classes when he gets there."

He dried his hands on the rag beside the sink.

A few moments later, after Tobias had given thanks for the meal, meager though one small shepherd's pie split between three people was, Severus quietly asked, "What kind of a name is Dumbledore?"

"The name of a powerful wizard who happens to be the current Headmaster at Hogwarts. Not someone to be crossed lightly, in my experience. And that isn't counting that he'll have the power to send you home permanently, Sev," his mother told him.

He looked down at his plate.

"But he's good, and he doesn't let anyone get away with things just because they are at the top of the class or a sports captain. He didn't when he was a teacher and I know he won't as Headmaster. Be a good boy and a good student, and you won't have a bother in the world from him. Don't worry so much."

Silence for a moment.

"Son, if you've got half your mother's skill, you'll do fine for yourself."

He looked up, shocked. His father didn't mention his mother's abilities much, save for the little bit of money she brought in doing bits of potions work and sending the results off by her battered old owl. And Tobias Snape certainly didn't like mentioning that money. It meant they didn't have to share the tiny rowhouse with another family or two, and it meant that there was meat on their plates more often than most of his father's fellow millworkers could hope for. But there was still something about it.

He saw his mother give his father a rare tiny smile.

They both went back to eating and after a moment Severus knew that the discussion was over.

He was going to go to school to be a wizard, and he was going to be fine.


End file.
